Ok, I've been trying to stay mostly out of this one, but I gotta draw a line somewhere.
That's a load of crap. Saying "if you only have $150, you should spend it on a pro studio rather than trying to record yourself" only makes ANY sense if you assume that the OP is only concerned about the final project and isn't at ALL interested in getting into recording as a hobby, or as a means for documenting the songs he's written to pass out to (or look for) bandmates, or any of a hundred other reasons why one might want to learn how to record themselves.
Yes, getting "pro" results costs a fair amount of money. No one's disagreeing. But you can make "decent" recordings for surprisingly cheap these days, and you can make tolerable recordings for next to nothing. I don't have 18 years under my belt, but I'm porobably pushing half that, and when I started my budget was about, oh, nothing - I recorded for the first year or so (and got results that were hardly pro but were surprisingly good considering what I was working with) with one of those little whammy-bar looking computer mics straight into my soundcard, because I didn't have anything else, and eventually "upgraded' to a $30 radio shack SM58 knockoff with an XLR-1/4" cable running into a 1/4" to 1/8" adaptor straight into that same soundcard, a few years later augmented occasionally by a Johnson J-Station. Sure, no one would confuse what I was doing for a "pro" recording, but it also sure as hell didn't sound like a $40 setup or, after the J-Station, a $200 setup (toss $60 in there if you want to record a copy of Sonic Foundry Acid 2.0).
And you know what? I had a blast. I learned a ton, and now that I've moved on to marginally better things, I REALLY appreciate the better gear I now get to work with, but I'm also just as appreciative of all that time I spent "polishing a turd" because I learned a hell of a lot about polishing, which still serves me well today.
So, if the OP wants to record and needs to do it on the cheap, then it absolutely makes sense to look at cheap gear. Telling him "don't bother, hire a pro" completely misses the point. Maybe you don't enjoy recording and mixing, but I happen to have a lot of fun with this hobby, and the act is almost as much fun as the finished product for me.
Grow up.
EDIT:
Don't be retarded. There are two ways in which buying something is a worthwhile economic transaction - one, if you expect to reap fiscal reward such that the present value of all future cash flows associated with said purchase discounted at an appropriate discount rate is greater than the purchase price, or two, if you reap non-fiscal enjoyment from the purchase such that you generate greater utility by making the purchase vs spending your money elsewhere. Whitestrat is pretty clearly off-the-charts happy in the second camp, and from the talk I've heard from Jamfest really does have one hell of a rig.
